Winston Churchill was born on 30
November 1874, in Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire and was of rich, aristocratic
ancestry.
Although achieving poor grades at
school, his early fascination with militarism saw him join the Royal Cavalry in
1895. As a soldier and part-time journalist, Churchill travelled widely,
including trips to Cuba, Afghanistan, Egypt and South Africa.
Churchill was elected as
Conservative MP for Oldham in 1900, before defecting to the Liberal Party in
1904 and spending the next decade climbing the ranks of the Liberal government.
He was First Lord of the
Admiralty (the civil/political head of the Royal Navy) by the time of the
disastrous Gallipoli campaign, which he created. Heavily criticised for this
error, he resigned from this position and travelled to the Western Front to
fight himself.
The interwar years saw Churchill
again ‘cross the floor’ from the Liberals, back to the Conservative Party. He
served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1924, when he controversially opted
for Britain to re-join the Gold Standard.
Following the Tory electoral defeat in 1929,
Churchill lost his seat and spent much of the next 11 years out of office,
mainly writing and making speeches.
Although he was alone in his firm
opposition to Indian Independence, his warnings against the Appeasement of Nazi
Germany were proven correct when the Second World War broke out in 1939.
Following Neville Chamberlain’s
resignation in 1940, Churchill was chosen to succeed him as Prime Minister of
an all-party coalition government.
Churchill, who also adopted the
self-created position of Minister for Defence, was active both in
administrative and diplomatic functions in prosecuting the British war effort.
Some of his most memorable speeches were given
in this period, and are credited with stimulating British morale during periods
of great hardship.
However, Labour leader Clement Attlee’s
unexpected General Election victory in 1945 saw Churchill out of office and
once again concentrating on public speaking.
In his 1946 speech in the USA,
the instinctive pro-American famously declared that “an iron curtain has
descended across the Continent”, and warned of the continued danger from a
powerful Soviet Russia.
By his re-election in 1951,
Churchill was, in the words of Roy Jenkins, “gloriously unfit for office”.
Ageing and increasingly unwell, he often conducted business from his bedside,
and while his powerful personality and oratory ability endured, the Prime
Minister’s leadership was less decisive than during the war. His second term was
most notable for the Conservative Party’s acceptance of Labour’s newly created
Welfare State, and Churchill’s effect on domestic policy was limited.
His later attempts at ecreasing
the developing Cold War through personal diplomacy failed to produce significant
results, and poor health forced him to resign in 1955, making way for his
Foreign Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, Anthony Eden.Churchill died in
1965, and was honoured with a state funeral. SOURCE - gov.uk
SOME FAMOUS QUOTE
“Success is not final, failure is
not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
“Success consists of going from
failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm”
“I may be drunk, Miss, but in the
morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.”
“If you're going through hell,
keep going.”
“Continuous effort - not strength
or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.”
“Attitude is a little thing that
makes a big difference.”
“We make a living by what we get,
but we make a life by what we give.”
“If we open a quarrel between
past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment